OUR SAY: Charging for DIA admissions would be an affront to taxpayers

Voters were promised in 2012 that if they approved a tax to support the Detroit Institute of Arts, in return they’d get free admission.

They approved the tax. Admission for them is free except for special, pricey exhibitions.

A newspaper editorial a few days ago proposed reinstating the admission as a means of supporting the Institute and the City of Detroit in bankruptcy proceedings.

Suburban leaders are threatening to pull the tax revenue from the Institute if that happens.

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“Reviving the admission fee would violate every promise that’s been made to pass the millage,” said Tom Guastello, the chairperson of the Oakland County Art Authority and a former state senator from Macomb County.

County executives L. Brooks Patterson of Oakland and Mark Hackel of Macomb also turned thumbs down on the proposal.

While we dislike a knee-jerk reaction to withhold what’s now a major source of revenue for one of the jewels of Detroit and southeastern Michigan, we have to support the position.

The promise of free admission was an explicit one.

By contrast, we recall no similar pledge to voters that the art collection at the DIA would never, ever be changed, that no Monet would ever change hands. Suburban leaders nevertheless have threatened to withhold tax revenue if any of the collection is sold as part of a bankruptcy settlement. While we don’t wish for any sales, we don’t believe the value of the Institute to the region should be based largely on a handful of its most valuable works. The museum is worth much, much more to the region than that.

The newspaper editorial proposing reinstatement of the admission fee pointed out that it would raise $1.5 million annually. That’s a useful amount, but still small against the DIA’s $35 million budget, of which none comes from the city.

Institute officials assert that they have no plans to resume charging tri-county residents admission.

But the idea of an admission charge at the doors to the Detroit Institute of Arts should be scuttled, never to be raised again. It would break a promise to voters in the region who approved regional support of an important regional resource.